LADY CONNIE.
BY MRS. HUMPHRY WARD.
Copyright, 1915, by Mrs. Humphry Ward in the United States of America.
CHAPTER XVI.
Constance Bledlow stepped out of the Bletchley train into the crowded Oxford station. Annette was behind her. As they made their way towards the luggage van, Connie saw a beckoning hand and face. They belonged to Nora Hooper, and in another minute Connie found herself taken possession of by her cousin. Nora was deeply sunburnt. Her colour was more garishly red and brown, her manner more trenchant than ever. At sight of Connie her face flushed with a sudden smile, as though the owner of the face could not help it. Yet they had only been a few minutes together before Connie had discovered that, beneath the sunburn, there was a look of tension and distress, and that the young brown eyes, usually so bright and bold, were dulled with fatigue. But to notice such things in Nora was only to be scorned. Connie held her tongue.
‘Can’t you leave Annette to bring the luggage, and let us walk up?’ said Nora.
Connie assented, and the two girls were soon in the long and generally crowded street leading to the Corn-market. Nora gave rapidly a little necessary information. Term had just begun, and Oxford was ‘dreadfully full.’ She had got another job of copying work at the Bodleian, for which she was being paid by the University Press, and what with that and the work for her coming exam., she was ‘pretty driven.’ But she liked it; that was what suited her. Alice and her mother were ‘all right.’
‘And Uncle Ewen?’ said Connie.
Nora paused a moment.